


Test the Seams

by Mockwater



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Flash Fic, Gen, Post-Rebellion Story, Short, Surreal, There're a lot of cats around these days, but many of those cats are dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27253165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mockwater/pseuds/Mockwater
Summary: The world wasn’t always like this.I feel it under my skin, track it in the corners of my vision. Something has changed.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Test the Seams

The world wasn’t always like this.

I feel it under my skin, track it in the corners of my vision. Something has changed.

I walk to school, watching for the empty spaces, the gaps in being. Sometimes I find them.

The classroom next door is empty, desks stacked on top of each other. Was it always this way? Were they always there? I turn back to my work but the characters are somehow unfamiliar. Faces bob against the glass: doll children with knowing smiles and whirling eyes.

\---

I sleep badly. In my dreams I’m lying flat on my stomach on top of a tall building, cheek pressed against the cold metal of my rifle. The night city fills my horizon, windows and doorways stained the dying ochre of dusk. Green diamonds hover in my vision; windows into clarity that pick out the environment around me, enhancing it in eerie emerald detail. 

Far below, a woman lifts her hand, adjusting her hair, and I see every tendon flexing below her skin. A door closes, and my eyes track every fleeting reflection in its glass.

_There._

It creeps out along the wall, spreading like a stain. Static and false light, empty edges. It’s bald, misshapen, horrifically hungry. Empty like I am empty. It stretches sparking fingers out along the pavement, cupping the woman’s silhouetted head in hideously-pointed nails. They tighten. Tighten.

My fingers find the trigger, and with a shock that sparks the green gem embedded at the nape of my neck, the rifle fires, bucking against my chest. A finger-thin shaft of light punctures that pale skull, and the wraith collapses, keening. I watch every spark that burns off it as it falls, my too-clear vision tracking each one individually.

_I want to see things as they really are._

I'm awake. Sweat and darkness. I stare up at the ceiling, one hand groping at the base of my neck. There is nothing there. There is something there. There was never anything there.

\---

At school, something that is not a cat lies dead in the grass. I sit across from it, reading words I’m sure I’ve read before. The faint half-circle of the moon hangs, pale as a warning, in the summer sky above.

_What do you want? Everyone wants something. Everyone can see a version of the world that’s just a little different; an altered state. Everyone can reach for it. But you... you can touch._

“You can touch.”

I raise dull eyes to the girl sitting next to me. “I--”

“Touch, but don’t look,” she says, and draws my hand up to her chest, dark hair falling over her face as she leans close. We are very still. “Do you understand?” 

She’s soft-- soft and hollow. No heartbeat beneath my fingers. Around us, everything is glass, clear and fragile. You can see through it if you look-- test the seams. False light. Empty edges.

“Why did you do it?” My voice is small.

“Love,” she breathes. “Do you value love, Mitsuko?”

I nod, slowly. I understand.

\---

The world wasn’t always like this.

I feel it beneath my skin, track it in the corners of my vision with emerald divisions that catch every detail, note every inconsistency. I know the empty spaces, the gaps in being where she’s erased the old distinctions, drawn new ones. The day separated from the night.

She moves so carefully-- it’s love, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Not too long ago I read this Reddit post speculating about Nagisa, maverick that she is, in Rebellion's epilogue. "I just wanted to eat cheese one more time!" And then in the New World she's happily playing in the streets even as they flood-- whether as witch or as magical girl, she appears to be right at home.
> 
> People were discussing whether Nagisa had had her memory altered, or had merely chosen to side with Homura, deciding that her new system was a better deal than the one that preceded it. So I wanted to write something about a magical girl who understands what Homura has done-- and maybe ultimately accepts it.
> 
> Mitsuko's wish ("I want to see things as they really are") slowly feeds her information, working against the memory manipulation that prevents the puella magi of the New World from remembering what they are. She thinks she's going crazy, but actually she's just noticing all the inconsistencies introduced by Homura's new universe.
> 
> When she meets Homura, the pieces fit together.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
